Tonight is the only time you will see the Rangers and Oilers do battle this season, barring a miracle Stanley Cup matchup, and right now neither team is playing very well.

After winning seven straight the Rangers are 2-5-1 in their last eight and are suffering from the same “stone-itis” as the Oilers with only five goals in the last four games.

Ladislav Smid didn’t skate this morning and looks to be out tonight, so the defence pairings looks like this:

Visnovsky — Chorney
Strudwick — Staios
Gilbert — Grebeshkov

The Oilers still don’t have a pairing that resembles a shut-down pair and it will be interesting to see who Tom Renney puts out against Marian Gaborik and Vinny Prospal. If Smid was playing he would be the guy, but with him out Renney told me it will be by committee tonight.

Renney has been really happy with Smid this season, and that when they have given him the assignment to shut down a guy, he has welcomed it.

Up front the Oilers will role two supposed scoring lines, and then a checking line and an energy line.

JF Jacques is out for tonight. He is suffering from back spasms, and he will have an MRI this afternoon. They don’t think it is related to his previous back injury and the MRI is more precautionary. Mike Comrie is feeling a bit better, but he won’t know exactly how his breathing is until he gets in the game. And look for Comrie to take a few draws with O’Sullivan not overly comfortable in the dot.

The good news for the Oilers is that the Rangers aren’t a dominant team in the dot. The Rangers are 48% while the Oilers are 46% in the draw, so one of them will improve their percentage tonight.

As you hunker down, or head out to The Pint to watch PPV tonight, expect the Oilers to be more physical. The consistent message from the players is that they have to get back to being hard to play against like they were in the first nine games. The Rangers aren’t blessed with a really big or physical team, so if the Oilers skate and hit like they did early this season they should be successful.

The Oilers need to do a better job of getting shots and limiting the shots against. They can’t expect to win games when they are consistently getting out-shot by ten or more shots. It comes down to effort and a willingness to compete.

Which is the exact same problem they’ve had in previous years. This team needs to be more consistent with the small details of their game, and they need to start executing what the coaching staff wants. If they don’t they will struggle to stay in the hunt, but if the light switches on then they have the make up to be competitive.

Look for the Oilers to re-call someone after the game, just to ensure they have enough bodies on the road trip. Chris Minard would have been the guy, with nine goals in eleven games, but he has a mild concussion and is out. Ryan O’Marra has not been good of late, so expect it to be either Ryan Potulny or Liam Reddox.

Souray speaks

Sheldon Souray spoke for the first time since being injured on October 8th. He had a fairly intense bike ride yesterday and then skated. He has gone four days without any negative symptoms, but is very cautious about when he will return.

When I asked him his thoughts on the play with Iginla he said, “I respect Jarome and the way he plays. Accidents happen all the time and it is unfortunate what happened, but I’m not upset about it. It is a common play in hockey when a guy forechecks hard and you feel the pressure ...The game is so fast and guys have to make decisions in a second and sometimes accidents happen.”

Not surprising that he feels that way, since Souray is a hard-nosed player and it clearly wasn’t a cheap play. Ideally Iginla’s stick wouldn’t have been there, but the game is so fast, ultimately accidents will happen.

Souray is taking a very cautious approach, and he would like to join the team on the road, just so he could get skating with other people. He hasn’t worked out in a month, and said he hasn’t gone that long without working out in his career. Even after shoulder surgery he would start rehabbing within a week or two. So he feels he has to get back in shape and hopefully not suffer any setbacks before he even thinks about returning. Don’t expect him back for at least two weeks and probably three.

One of Canada's most versatile sports personalities. Jason hosts The Jason Gregor Show, weekdays from 2 to 6 p.m., on TSN 1260, and he writes a column every Monday in the Edmonton Journal. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JasonGregor

Brashear is hurt and Byers is suspended. Problem is the games rarely gets hairy nowadays, and to me MacIntyre would be more effective if he is the guy making big hits rather than just fighting other heavyweights.

Byers is suspended again? Man that guy loves getting suspended more than I love making poop jokes.

And I agree that he'd be far more valuable if he would make more hits like the one where he crushed the soul of of Dustin Boyd last year, on a regular basis, but with Souray and Jacques out it is nice having at least one guy out there that poses a legitimate threat to the other team if they decide to take any liberties on our undersized squad.

But with Brashear and Byers both out then someone else should take that spot. Stortini can handle Voros.

Byers is suspended again? Man that guy loves getting suspended more than I love making poop jokes.

And I agree that he'd be far more valuable if he would make more hits like the one where he crushed the soul of of Dustin Boyd last year, on a regular basis, but with Souray and Jacques out it is nice having at least one guy out there that poses a legitimate threat to the other team if they decide to take any liberties on our undersized squad.

But with Brashear and Byers both out then someone else should take that spot. Stortini can handle Voros.

If you watch the slo-mo, you can see that he also covered Boyd in salt, so no soul could ever grow back.

I understand your point, but isn't it kinda hard to be an offensive threat when his linemates (for the most part) have been Moreau and Stortini?

I agree to an extent, but Gagner made that line click while he was there, and Cogs doesn't have that same ability. Different players, I guess. Cogliano has proven that he can put the puck in the net, but he hasn't been able to elevate his game to the next level when called upon.

I've been living in a place with such a lousy connection that it could barely carry the CHED audio feed, and now that I've finally landed in a spot with some bandwidth the game disappears? God must really not like my pro-gay stances...

I've been living in a place with such a lousy connection that it could barely carry the CHED audio feed, and now that I've finally landed in a spot with some bandwidth the game disappears? God must really not like my pro-gay stances...

Haha. That was a great thread. While I'm all for the craziness of this site, it's nice to have a good old-fashioned discussion once in a while.

"It probably didn't help anything that MacT's favorites more often than not happened to be the guys that were consistently bad. It's one thing to pick favorites based on who is playing well and who goes out there and plays his bag off every shift, that's just plain and simple earning your keep. But it's a different story when you're favorites are guys that make glaring errors, yet never get taken to task for them."

I don't but that for a second. Who were MacT's favorites over the last few years? Horc/Staios/Moreau/Smyth to a lesser extent Gagner. All guys that busts their butts every shift. Who did he crap on last year? Lazy guys that took a tonne of shifts off and/or made brutal mistakes.

I think I worded that weirdly.
There seemed to be less accountability with MacT at the helm, as far as "his guys" were concerned. Regardless of how horrible Horcoff or Moreau were doing they were never, ever moved from their spot on their line, and were rarely, if ever called out for making horrible plays/decisions. They had super long leashes just because they had built up a decent amount of brownie points from their hard work. Which I'm fine with, but there was a clear double standard.
And yeah MacT called out guys that made brutal mistakes, unless your name was Moreau, Staios, Horcoff, Peterson, etc. Weirdly enough those guys were his favorites. Hmmmm.